Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

The book is dedicated to the island of Guernsey, where Victor Hugo spent 15 years in exile. Hugo uses the setting of a small island community to convert seemingly mundane events into drama of the highest caliber. Set just after the Napoleonic Wars, Toilers of the Sea deals with the impact of the Industrial Revolution upon the island. The story concerns a Guernseyman named Gilliatt, a social outcast who falls in love with Deruchette, the niece of a local shipowner, Mess Lethierry. When Lethierry's ship is wrecked on a perilous reef, Deruchette promises to marry whoever can salvage the ship's ...

Recueil de neuf nouvelles d'Arsène Lupin (Les Jeux du soleil, L'anneau nuptial, Le signe de l'ombre, Le piège infernal, L'écharpe de soie rouge, La mort qui rôde, Edith au cou de Cygne, Le fétu de paille, Le mariage d'Arsène Lupin)- Summary by Fao10rk

The Eight Strokes of the Clock is a collection of eight short stories by Maurice Leblanc. The stories have his most famous creation, Arsène Lupin, gentleman-thief, as main character. The eight stories, even though independent, have a leading thread: Lupin, under the name of Serge Rénine, trying to conquer the heart of a young lady, travels with her, solving eight mysteries on the way. (Summary by Leni)

Nouveau combat d'Arsène Lupin, en tant que Don Luis Perenna, « Les Dents du tigre » met en scène un ennemi sournois et manipulateur qui cherche à s'attribuer un fabuleux héritage américain, au prix de crimes en cascade sur le sol français.Amoureux tendre, qui risque tout pour sa bien-aimée, redresseur de torts juste et implacable mais aussi ironique, Arsène Lupin nous entraine dans ses aventures avec force et séduction.(Résumé par Bidou)

During a burglary at the home of Deputy Daubrecq a crime is committed, and two accomplices of Arsène Lupin are arrested by the police. One is guilty of the crime, the other innocent, but both will be sentenced to death. Lupin seeks to deliver the victim of a miscarriage of justice, but struggles against Deputy Daubrecq's ruthless blackmailer, who has an incriminating document hidden in a crystal stopper. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Cousin Betty (La Cousine Bette), published in serial format in 1846, was one of the last and greatest of Balzac's works. It was part of his long novel collection titled La Comédie Humaine. Set in mid-19th-century France, it tells the story of a woman who resents her position as a "poor relation." As we follow her schemes to bring ruin upon the more privileged members of her family, we see a society in transition. The stability and idealism of the old order give way to a new bourgeois world in which virtue is strangled in the struggle for power and money. In this novel, Balzac searchingly ...

A collection of nine stories - or confessions - of the celebrated gentleman thief Arsene Lupin. (Summary by Cathy Barratt)

Ce n'était pas une petite tâche que de peindre les deux ou trois mille figures saillantes d'une époque, car telle est, en définitif, la somme des types que présente chaque génération et que La Comédie Humaine comportera. Ce nombre de figures, de caractères, cette multitude d'existences exigeaient des cadres, et, qu'on me pardonne cette expression, des galeries. De là, les divisions si naturelles, déjà connues, de mon ouvrage en Scènes de la vie privée, de province, parisienne, politique, militaire et de campagne. Dans ces six livres sont classées toutes les Etudes de moeurs qui ...

Cousin Pons is one of the final works in Balzac's long novel series titled The Human Comedy. It was published in 1847, along with Cousin Betty, as one of a complementary pair of novels, collectively titled Poor Relations. While Cousin Betty tells the story of a bitter woman who seeks revenge on her wealthier relations, in Cousin Pons, Balzac turns to the story of an timid, innocent man who is exploited and victimized by the wealthier members of his extended family.Balzac offers probing character portraits and an indictment of greed and materialism in this detailed portrait of mid-19th-century ...

In "The Blonde Lady, being a record of the duel of wits between Arsène Lupin and the English detective" - original title "Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes" - the gentleman-burglar once more meets his enemy, the English detective Herlock Sholmes. If in the last story of "Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar" Sherlock Holmes arrives too late (the name was at a later date changed to Herlock Sholmes in reply to complaints and threats by Conan Doyle regarding copyrights), in the two stories that compose "The Blonde Lady" these two great intellects are bound in opposite directions. Where one ...

Le Père Goriot est un roman d’Honoré de Balzac, écrit en 1834, dont la publication débute dans la Revue de Paris et qui paraît en 1835 en librairie. Il fait partie des Scènes de la vie privée de la Comédie humaine. Le Père Goriot établit les bases de ce qui deviendra un véritable édifice : la Comédie humaine, construction littéraire unique en son genre, avec des liens entre les volumes, des passerelles, des renvois. (Résumé par Wikipédia)Le Père Goriot (English: Father Goriot or Old Goriot) is an 1835 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), ...

Ce n'était pas une petite tâche que de peindre les deux ou trois mille figures saillantes d'une époque, car telle est, en définitif, la somme des types que présente chaque génération et que La Comédie Humaine comportera. Ce nombre de figures, de caractères, cette multitude d'existences exigeaient des cadres, et, qu'on me pardonne cette expression, des galeries. De là, les divisions si naturelles, déjà connues, de mon ouvrage en Scènes de la vie privée, de province, parisienne, politique, militaire et de campagne. Dans ces six livres sont classées toutes les Études de mœurs qui...

Colonel Chabert is a soldier, who goes missing during the Napoleonic wars, and then returns from the dead, most inconveniently for his wife, who has remarried and has gone up in the world. This novella by Balzac lays bare the venality of the French Restoration period. It has been filmed several times, most recently in the 1994 version, starring Gerard Depardieu. - Summary by Nicole Lee

Ce n'était pas une petite tâche que de peindre les deux ou trois mille figures saillantes d'une époque, car telle est, en définitif, la somme des types que présente chaque génération et que La Comédie Humaine comportera. Ce nombre de figures, de caractères, cette multitude d'existences exigeaient des cadres, et, qu'on me pardonne cette expression, des galeries. De là, les divisions si naturelles, déjà connues, de mon ouvrage en Scènes de la vie privée, de province, parisienne, politique, militaire et de campagne. Dans ces six livres sont classées toutes les Études de mœurs qui...

“Rise and Fall of César Birotteau” (1837) is part of Balzac’s great novel series titled “The Human Comedy.”The story is set in Paris, in the years following the restoration of the monarchy after the Napoleonic era. The masters of the old society — the aristocracy and the church — had been overtaken by a newly energized middle class, with its merchants, landlords, lawyers, and bankers. French society found itself in a new world of financial adventurism, floating on a sea of credit and speculation. César Birotteau, a good-hearted and harmless man, has worked his way up from ...

Le tome 5 des Misérables, dédié à Jean Valjean, clôt ce roman historique, social et philosophique dans lequel on retrouve les idéaux du romantisme et ceux de Victor Hugo concernant la nature humaine. (résumé par Nadine)

Les Chouans is one of the novels in Balzac's series La Comedie Humaine. Its ostensible focus is a historical military conflict, but it also follows the love affair between an aristocratic beauty with one of the rebels.

“The Chouans” (1829) was the first novel published under Balzac’s own name (rather than a pen-name). It became the first book in the great work of his lifetime — the novel series titled “The Human Comedy.”Balzac was impressed by the writings of Sir Walter Scott. Scott made Scottish history come alive by creating fictions that used real history as backdrop. Balzac’s novel is set in 1799 — the year that Napoleon became First Consul of France. In the far west of France (i.e., Brittany), anti-revolutionary sentiment still simmered. The Chouans were a rustic guerrilla militia who ...

Ce n'était pas une petite tâche que de peindre les deux ou trois mille figures saillantes d'une époque, car telle est, en définitif, la somme des types que présente chaque génération et que La Comédie Humaine comportera. Ce nombre de figures, de caractères, cette multitude d'existences exigeaient des cadres, et, qu'on me pardonne cette expression, des galeries. De là, les divisions si naturelles, déjà connues, de mon ouvrage en Scènes de la vie privée, de province, parisienne, politique, militaire et de campagne. Dans ces six livres sont classées toutes les Etudes de moeurs qui ...

The short novel “Colonel Chabert” (1832) is part of Balzac’s great life work, the sprawling novel series titled “The Human Comedy.” Chabert, an officer in Napoleon’s army, is pronounced dead on the battlefield. His wife then inherits his estate and remarries. It turns out, however, that Chabert has in fact survived the war. When he regains his health, he returns to Paris and tries to take legal action to restore his position. This sets up a conflict between the old military virtues of honor and principle versus the avarice and amorality of society in post-Napoleonic France. - ...